Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Okay. I'll admit it. I've networked before. But this is pure networking. It's not part of joining a board to do good and networking in the process. It's not meeting someone who might be a friend and getting a little networking in. It's meeting a group of women I know nothing about for the express purpose of building my business.

So you thought you couldn't do it. True, they did call me the schmooze queen back in New Jersey. But I'm not a natural schmoozer. I learned how to do it (see the book Small Talk) and I'm a bit of a ham. You can learn it too.

I am secretly excited about it. My little gremlin friend tells me I can't be too excited, but I tell him to zip it. If I'm not too excited, I won't be too disappointed. But you have to have enough excitement to generate the appropriate level of enthusiasm.

So, to network, in a nutshell: Find a venue, commit to it, generate some excitement (the more the merrier) and put on the show. Break a leg.